THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, March 10, 1995                 TAG: 9503100339
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                     LENGTH: Short :   49 lines

REVIEW OF BEACH'S CHILD WELFARE SETUP TO BEGIN MONDAY THE CITY REQUESTED IT, HOPING TO CLEAR THE AGENCY'S NAME.

A state-appointed, nine-member panel will begin a review Monday of the child welfare services and procedures of the Virginia Beach Social Services Department.

The review - requested by the department's director and the city manager - will focus on the department's decision-making in critical cases, customer service and recruitment.

City Manager James K. Spore said he hopes it will clear the department's name, after a year of criticism for controversial decisions, and provide suggestions for improvement.

The department has been criticized repeatedly over the past year about decisions to put three children in homes with abusive adults.

Spore and the department's director, Daniel M. Stone, said the three cases make up a small part of the department's workload.

``It's unfortunate that so much concern is surrounding those three controversial cases,'' Stone said, ``when not very much attention is given to the fact that we have investigated over 20,000 other cases'' since 1989.

In February 1994, a judge in Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court threatened contempt and publicly chastised the department for ignoring his order to investigate a child-abuse allegation. Police and social workers later learned that the 4-year-old girl in question was being punished in a closet cell-like setup they called ``The Box.''

A few months later, police and the commonwealth attorney's office investigated the agency's decision to knowingly return a foster boy to the home of a convicted child-molester. No charges resulted against the agency.

In October, Virginia Beach prosecutors complained about Social Services' decision to return a 10-month-old boy to his parents while the parents awaited trial on felony neglect charges for starving the boy. A jury convicted the parents in January, and the parents were jailed last month to begin a 106-day sentence.

The review panel, selected by the state and paid for jointly by the city and state, includes two out-of-state experts, a Virginia Tech professor and six state staff members. Their work is expected to be completed in May. MEMO: Staff writer Matthew Bowers contributed to this report.

by CNB